At first, I was absolutely against a remake of RoboCop since its one of my three favorite movies. But, the more I read about it, the more interested I'm getting in it. Of course, I've never seen either of the Elite Squad movies, but I have them on my Netflix queue and need to watch them. I've never seen anything that the dude playing Murphy was in.

But, when they announced Gary Oldman and Samuel L. Jackson, I immediately started getting excited about this movie. Especially since Jackson is supposedly playing some sort of charismatic media mogul, which sounds like he's not playing a recasted Casey Wong. So it'll be neat to see what they do with this.

Also checked out the concept art a few posts up. While the RoboCop redesign looks pretty cool (not sure about the lightsaber, though), I think the ED-209 design isn't so great, mostly because it's more reminiscent of RoboCop 2 than ED-209.

I also can't wait to hear who they announce will be playing Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker. Ronny Cox and Kurtwood Smith would be a tough act to follow, but I'll bet somebody like Bryan Cranston and Jackie Earle Haley could pull it off.

I also can't wait to hear who they announce will be playing Dick Jones and Clarence Boddicker.

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I think you're going to be disappointed, because everything we've heard so far sounds like they're taking a seriously different approach to the property:

Joel Kinnaman said:

"We'll see me," he promises. "The visor's gonna be see-through. It's going to be much more of a human performance. There's not going to be any twitchy robot [he mimics very mechanical robotic moves]. Our vision of how a robot is going to be in 2046, it's going to be a very human skin, it's gonna look very human. I'm going to be able to put my signature on the body language, too. The first 'RoboCop' movie is one of my favorite movies. I've seen that movie probably 15 or 20 times. But from an acting standpoint, walking around just moving your jaw, it's not so interesting. So this is going to be an opportunity to really bring a full performance to it."

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Outside of Alex Murphy, I wouldn't be shocked if none of the characters in the remake have names from the original. It sounds like Padilha and Co. are really doing something different with the property, and honestly, I'm fine with that, because if you're just remaking the first movie with a new coat of paint, why bother?

^ I think they'll keep it for the name recognition value it brings. But I think it's good that they're otherwise totally changing things around. I mean, who on Earth could try to play Clarence Boddicker any better than Kurtwood Smith?!

I'm not 100% aboard with this remake, on one hand, it may be somewhat decent, on the other, it may bastardize the original.

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The existence of a remake cannot, by definition, tarnish or otherwise damage the quality of an entirely separate work. No one (legitimately, anyway) sits around and thinks, "Wow, Dracula 2000 was such a piece of shit, now I can't enjoy Tod Browning's 1931 film." The RoboCop remake may say something very new and very intelligent with the source material, and be remembered fondly as a companion piece to Verhoeven's original, or it'll be dogshit and little more than a footnote.

I know this sounds weird but I always disliked the fact that Robocop never had any police insignia on his armor. I wouldn't follow the instructions of some big robot guy if he didn't have any apparent business barking orders at me. Well... not unless he pulled out his BFG. Then I'd be his bitch.

Would it not be more accurate to call this Robocop a reimagining instead of a reboot?
Cause it does not seem they are trying to replay the largest beats of the first film.
I typically view a reboot as one that is, at it's core, just retelling the same story with new flm actors. A reimagining as a twist on an established property.

Or they're taking the story in a very different direction to the original and Murphy's wife will have a much bigger part.

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I've never cared much about the character since she never got much to do in the first two movies.

Murphy's wife was in a bunch of flashbacks in the first movie, but we learned almost nothing about her. They were only there to develop Murphy and let us know what he lost after getting killed.

In the second movie, the whole stalker plot went nowhere. It was the best part of the movie, but the whole thing was crammed into a movie that was too busy. They really should have made it the main plot along with the whole Cain thing.

Would it not be more accurate to call this Robocop a reimagining instead of a reboot?
Cause it does not seem they are trying to replay the largest beats of the first film.
I typically view a reboot as one that is, at it's core, just retelling the same story with new flm actors. A reimagining as a twist on an established property.

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I feel the same way. Reimagining and Reboot should be considered two different things. It is looking more and more like this thing is a reimagining, completely new plot but with the same characters.

Then just doing my part to spread some ideas about differentiation of the terms!

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Fair enough.

If they are to have discrete meanings then remake would be the term for going through the same plot beats with different actors in my opinion. A reboot would be starting a franchise over again from scratch, but not necessarily using the same plot. A reimagining would be taking the basic idea of the original and coming up with something dramatically different.